


no one will know it but me

by malatruse



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Biting, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, M/M, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:05:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malatruse/pseuds/malatruse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone's got to keep the walrider fed so it doesn't go on a killing spree. Maybe a few heads need to be taken off in the process, whatever, Miles isn't one to judge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shares similarities to my other fic but they're not linked in any way.

He’s been loitering outside the gas station for a good hour before a possible mark shows up.

Honestly he’s almost ready to call the whole night a wash, slumped in the passenger seat, when the walrider snaps his head hard to the left in time to see a sleek car roll into the lot. A middle-aged man gets out and walks into the convenience store, leaving his car idling in front of the nearest pump. He looks plain enough on the outside, but the walrider’s already got its tendrils licking at his brain, and the things it shows him are cold water on a cold december day.

Assault charges dropped, bail paid, an ignored affair. And all of it so, so violent. Miles’ hands are curling into fists already, and the walrider’s hunger beats sharp and dripping in his mind. When the man crosses the lot and peels out, Miles climbs into the driver’s seat, starts the car, and follows.

He likes this stretch of road. Tall trees frame either side, and the right edge drops into a ditch steep enough in some places for a car to get wedged almost completely out of sight. It’s no work at all to catch up to the guy, or to send the swarm snaking out to snap at his tires until he’s slowing, or to run him off the road.

Miles parks a little further on, where there’s an actual pulloff, and walks back at a leisurely pace. By the time he’s in sight of the beached car the guy has managed to haul himself out and is searching for his phone. It won’t matter, though; he won’t be getting through to anyone, not with the walrider around.

“Need some help, dude?”

The way his head snaps up is almost comical. “Stay where you are!” he shouts back, and oh no, that won’t do. He rolls his shoulders a few times, and the walrider bursts out of him. It sinks its teeth into the guy, figuratively for now, wrapping around and sinking into him in what Miles knows is an extremely uncomfortable way. It stills his limbs, walks him jerkily forward like a marionette, and Miles falls into step beside it, head back towards his own car. (Not the Jeep, sadly, that was a lost cause.)

He scans through the radio stations as he drives home, settling on one of the free (donation-funded) stations. They’re playing [one of those songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGDseFAwsTU) where you can’t tell when it actually ends, and he hums along off-tune. “What’s your story, man?” he asks, keeping his eyes on the road. Not a good time to get in an accident. “Driving alone on a mountain at night, in that souped-up black machine of yours. You get bored of city life? Getting away from the wife for a weekend? Yeah, I know that feeling.” Well, if tasting it secondhand through someone’s thoughts counts as knowing, that is. He laughs. “You should come over to my place sometime. Have a nice heart to heart _._ ” And there’s something so _I’ll show you mine_ about the phrasing, he has to bite down on another snicker.

They pull into the drive of a neat suburban house and Miles cuts the engine. The lights are out; hell, all the lights on the street are out at this hour and that’s just fine by him. The two of them walk side by side up the tidy stone walkway and through the door, which he locks and bolts behind them. The neighbors aren’t particularly nosy, but hey, you never know.

The walrider’s already got the guy downstairs by the time he catches up, and Miles locks the basement door, too. Only then does he let himself relax. By then the walrider’s slipped out of the guy, leaving him gasping and unsteady on his feet.

It’s hard work keeping the walrider fed, but he doesn’t mind too much. Symbiotic relationship or whatever. Gotta feed the lion so it doesn’t bite the hand that feeds. The walrider shimmers in the air at the thought, forming something large and black and definitely not a lion, snapping playfully at his ear.

“Okay, enough fooling around, let’s get to work.” He shoves his mark forward, watches the man topple neatly onto the wide table behind him. He’s still trying to form words, pleas or platitudes, but the shock—or maybe the hulking form of the walrider swarming curiously behind Miles—is preventing him. “What’s his name?”

Black smoke curls around the man, clogging his nose and mouth, and finally he manages a scream. It’s too little too late, though.

**Benjamin,** the walrider says with some disdain. It thinks long names with abbreviations are wasteful for some reason, but hey. It’ll make this kill a little bit sweeter, so Miles isn’t complaining.

First things first, though. He pushes Benny back down flat on the table and climbs up to straddle him. He puts his hands on either side of the guy’s head and leans closer. “Well, let’s see what you got.” The walrider presses close between the two of them, and it's like a switch being thrown. 

What Benny’s got is a long list of heinous crimes and skating just under the eyes of the law. The walrider sinks its fangs deep into his past, drinking in every memory of rape, drugging, jealousy so violent it left bruises. He’s screaming again, but it’s coming out as more of a wheeze at this point, and no one pays him any mind. The neighbors are too far away to hear shit all, and too polite to comment.

Once his thoughts have been picked clean they move on to the more hands-on part. Second-hand experiences of enacting cruelty can only go so far, after all. It takes power to bring down a meal, and the walrider’s still hungry.

He starts with the hammer. It snaps into his grip with just a thought, and the walrider spreads itself through his skin and his mind, directing him. It’s not his favorite part, watching bones crack under his supernaturally strong swings, but he can’t use the knife yet. Too much danger of Benny bleeding out. Besides, on a good hit, when he lifts the hammer, he can see bone fragments poking out like young saplings in the winter. He doesn’t have to love what he does to see the beauty in it.

Things always tend to get a little blurry  during these sessions. At some point he switched to the knife after all, and now he’s looking down at eight severed fingers and a very unhappy Benny. Miles has to laugh at his own little obsession. It’s not the first time he’s come out of a state of deep concentration only to realize he’s cut a few fingers off, but usually it’s not until he’s trashed the rest of the body. And this body is still very much intact.

Okay, maybe it's not super intact, unless you don't count the fingers, or the bruises and broken bones. He's still breathing, at least, eyes staring and unfocused, swinging to look at Miles at this interruption in the program. Miles wrinkles his nose at this display of—what was he even trying to do? His thoughts were smeared with pain so thick it hurt just to be near it. Maybe his ragged breathing was a sign of an attempted escape, or maybe he just wanted to keep on living a little longer.

Well, Miles could help with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: [Lovely fanart by radishdude773/seaslugbananabread!](http://seaslugbananabread.tumblr.com/post/161986203056/he-doesnt-have-to-love-what-he-does-to-see-the)


	2. Chapter 2

He meets the whistleblower again the way he meets most people: by practically walking into him.

It’s early evening, too early to wholeheartedly pick out a mark, but he’s wandering the nearby town’s winding streets anyway, lightly brushing the surface thoughts of the people around him, when he gets a whiff of something familiar.

This is how he's found most of the Murkoff execs he’s killed; their thoughts have this feel to them, dark and crunchy like mottled leaves underfoot. A scent of loam and rot that’s impossible to forget. So when someone stumbles into him with a faint hint of that distinctive perfume and a quick, “Oh, sorry,” Miles grabs him by the arm without even thinking about it.

He’s scrawny and weak, easily pulled around a corner and into an alley, no help from the walrider needed. He gets out a, “What—“ before they're digging into his mind, following that thread of decay down into a veritable pit of bodies.

Recognition clicks—impossible for it not to, when his name is right there at the front of the guy’s mind. Waylon Park. Not just any old Murkoff subsidiary, but a survivor of Mount Massive; the only survivor, technically. And isn’t that just some kind of sweet irony?

“Waylon Park,” he grinds out. “What a catch.”

Waylon is still reeling from his intrusion, and only manages, “I-I don’t—“ as Miles puts a hand on his shoulder and steers him back onto the street. “Miles...Upshur?”

He lets the hooks in Waylon’s mind sink a little deeper, dredges up an image of himself standing at the gates of Mount Massive, wreathed in shadow, and smiles fondly. “That’s me all right. Now that introductions are out of the way, I think you’d better come with me.” Waylon stiffens like maybe he’s going to run, and Miles’ grip tightens. “I think you know what’ll happen if you don’t, right dude?”

Waylon nods. He doesn’t resist when Miles herds him into the car, but he wants to, oh, he wants to. Miles can taste the fear rolling off him in waves, and the walrider writhes in anticipation. It wants to dig deeper here, _now_ , and a considerable amount of willpower is needed to keep it in check. Thankfully it’s not a long drive, or he’s sure they’d be pulling off the road outside of town like a couple of horny teenagers. Well, not that Miles has ever seen a teen do what _he_ does to the people who ride with him.

Next to him, Waylon opens his mouth, clears his throat. "Um--"

"Not here," Miles cuts in. "Not until we get home."

When they pull up, he goes inside no problem, but once the door is shut and safely locked, Miles is suddenly at a loss. The walrider still wants to rip into him, but Miles can see so many more possibilities. Forget going downstairs, they could sit him down at the kitchen table, act like they brought him here for a nice casual conversation, catching up on old times. Then when his back was turned, when his guard was down, they could—

But before he can finish that train of thought, Waylon speaks. “Listen,” he starts, as though he has anything less than Miles’ rapt attention for the next—oh, two or three hours. “I-I know what you’ve been doing, I mean, I didn’t know it was you but the police reports...A lot of people have been disappearing, some of them Murkoff. People are starting to take notice—“

“Oh my god, are you concerned about me? Worried I’ll get caught?” The walrider has been leeching out of him since they got inside, and now it moves, draping itself around Waylon like a coat. “Man, you should be _praying_ I get caught.”

Somehow he wasn’t expecting Waylon’s startled, “What,” his confused expression when the walrider’s grip on him tightens. It actually makes Miles pause for a moment, hands tightening into fists as he pulls back on the walrider. “Miles, I’m trying to _help_ you!”

Voice even as he can make it, he asks, “What makes you think I’d want your help after what you did to me?”

“I didn’t know Hope would achieve lateral ascension, I wasn’t even there when it happened, they caught me, they—“ And just like that, Miles has him on the kitchen floor, body pinned down and mind split open like a soft peach. Around them the walrider hisses and writhes, drinking in all that pain and fear and suffering.

“And the car, you stole my car.”

Waylon chokes out a laugh that’s just short of hysterical. “I needed it,” he manages.

That’s got Miles smirking. “Yeah, well, I need _this_. You want to help me? Just stay right there.” He gets to his feet, stumbling a little on his way to the basement door. Of course he leaves the walrider upstairs while he goes to fetch some tools, smiles with grim satisfaction as he senses Waylon try to sit up only to be pushed back down again. 

When he reaches the top of the stairs he finds Waylon has finally managed to get himself upright and is looking his way. “Oh, god, please tell me you don’t have a basement full of dead bodies," he says immediately.

“Well where else am I gonna put them? DNA analysis is everywhere, can’t risk someone finding a shoe in the trash.” He sits down next to Waylon, puts a friendly hand on his shoulder. “But that’s not something you need to worry about, seeing as how you’re gonna be joining 'em on the pile.”

Waylon bristles, despite the proximity of Miles with his tool belt full of knives, despite the walrider still filling the room with its impatient energy. “What the hell happened to you? Is this really the only solution you could think of? I sent you that email because I knew you would do what was right!”

“If you wanted what was right done so badly,” Miles spits, “Why didn’t you do it yourself?”

He shakes Miles’ hand off his shoulder. “I _tried_ , I went through hell and back, and _I got out!_ I exposed Murkoff’s wrongdoings to the public, for all the good it did! I lost everything except my life, who are you to sit here and judge me like you _understand_ —“

“Who am I? Seriously, Waylon, have you not been listening?”  He sits up straighter. The walrider, which tends to know what he’s going to do even before he does it, circles back to float behind him, its presence swelling enough to make the air hang heavy, the tension before a storm, the pressure of a plane that won’t stop rising. “I’m a god. And I need to eat.”


	3. Chapter 3

He doesn’t kill Waylon, of course. That would be a waste. Having someone around who knows his situation is nice. And having someone around who starts like he’s been shocked every time he looks up from what he’s doing and catches the walrider looming—well, that’s even nicer. Good for team morale, as it were.

Miles isn’t a complete asshole, so after that first night he doesn’t go sifting through Waylon’s memories. But he does insist that Waylon move in with him—it only makes sense, keeping an eye on him, in case he changes his mind about _wanting to help_. In this way he finds out that Waylon has a wife and kids—well, had. It’s kind of confusing how someone can just stop having connections to people after spending so much time with them, at least until Miles remembers how he hasn’t thought of his former coworkers at all since Mount Massive, or even his parents.

“But I’m literally a monster and a killer, so what does that make you, huh?” he asks without preamble.

Waylon glances up at him, looking not at all surprised to hear him bringing this up again. “I don’t want to talk about it, Miles.” He’s in the process of mixing an acidic solvent he’s been using to dispose of some of the body parts in the basement, and Miles probably shouldn’t be distracting him, but.

“If you’re bored go back upstairs,” Waylon says, like he’s the one with mind-reading powers.

Miles shifts in his seat, watching Waylon’s hands move. “It’s my house, I can be down here if I want.” Truth be told, he doesn’t want Waylon down in the basement alone. Intuition, maybe. These days, when his brain says something’s a bad idea he usually listens.

Waylon snorts. “Really, I don’t  know what you’re so—“ but he’s not even finished his sentence when his hand slips, and only Miles’ unnaturally quick grab saves him from spilling acid on himself. He grins triumphantly while Waylon stares at the jar in his hands, breathing hard.

It takes a while for Miles to let go, setting the jar down carefully. Finally the expression on Waylon’s face breaks ask he breathes out a long sigh of relief. “Well that’s enough of that for one day,” he murmurs, starting to clean up the tools scattered around him.

Miles watches him pack up, feet anchored to the floor, head swinging to follow his movements. When Waylon finishes and makes his way upstairs, he stops and looks at Miles quizzically, then shrugs and keeps walking.

As soon as the basement door shuts, he blinks, shakes his head. He can still see Waylon’s expression when he dropped the jar, that open-mouthed shock, the fear in his eyes. He wants to see that again.

Black mist seeps through the ceiling and wraps around him, and he murmurs, “No, c’mon, we talked about this already.”

**Just a little?** It asks, and he chews his lip.

“We’ll see,” he says finally.

First things first though. Before he can consider doing something that, ah, _final_ , there’s an offer he needs to take Waylon up on.

* * *

 

The walrider shifts uncomfortably under his skin as they wait. Across the street from their hotel window, Waylon stands awkwardly on the street corner, eyes shifting nervously back and forth. He looks up at the window, and Miles says, “Quit it.”

Waylon hunches over, looking away, says into his bluetooth earpiece, “Sorry.”

They’re a few towns over from Miles’ usual haunt, waiting for just the right combination of murderer and asshole to show up. Waylon is kindly acting as a lure, which he vaguely agreed to do when he first moved in and has finally agreed to actually do. He doesn’t seem too happy about it, but he’s still down there with the earpiece in looking vulnerable, and honestly Miles doesn’t understand his motivations for half the stuff he does anyways. From the way he obsessively cleans the kitchen, to the way he refuses to patch any of the holes in his shirts, to the way he still calls his ex-wife every few days.

And that’s one thing that really sticks out to Miles as a reason to keep him alive: how the hell could he explain it to that fireball of a woman or the two kids? It strikes Miles, not for the first time, that he really did weigh Waylon’s crimes that night, and found him—maybe not innocent, but not deserving of death, either.

**Concentrate,** the walrider whispers, and he blinks back to the present. **I found one. A good one.** It shows him the highlight reel, and sure enough, it’s some good shit. Enough to keep them nicely fed—with a little extra pressure applied in the right areas, of course.

“Heads up,” he says into his phone, and Waylon starts. “On your right, guy in the white suit.”

“Wh—what do I do, exactly?” Waylon asks.

“Get him up here, obviously. He likes your type, he should go for it with minimal effort. Think you can manage that?” Before he can reply, Miles ends the call.

Waylon looks up at him, then away. Nods. He still looks nervous, but there’s determination there, too, and Miles feels pride swell in his chest. That’ll play well to the mark, he decides. Make it more believable. He watches with undisguised interest as Waylon steps into the man’s path, stutters a few words of (presumably) invitation, and sees the man’s face light up, keeps watching even as they cross the street and into the hotel.

Finally the walrider nudges him, and he slinks carefully behind the door. There’s one light on, on the far side of the room. He feels his heartbeat hammering, has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

The lock on the door clicks, and the door itself slides open. Waylon comes in, and just like Miles told him, walks all the way into the room to stand by the light. The mark slowly follows, and once he clears the doorway Miles slams it shut, tackling him. He’s got an arm around the guy’s throat in seconds, the other trying to pin his arm down. Sure, he could have the walrider possess him, but that kind of silent, paralyzed fear is a very different flavor from what he’s getting right now.

Of course, it’s more dangerous, too. The guy gets his other arm free, starts to pound on the floor (like he’s tapping out, part of Miles’ brain supplies with some amusement) before Waylon rushes forward to grab him. Between the two of them, they get him tied and gagged, and Miles sits back with a huff.

“Thanks,” he says to Waylon. He digs around in his bag, pulls out the folded-up plastic tarp he brought just for this occasion, starts laying it out on the floor. “You might want to leave for this part. Or, I don’t know, hang out in the bathroom or something?”

Waylon shakes his head. “No, I.” Miles looks up at him, finds his gaze fixed firmly on their mark. “I should be here for this.”

* * *

 

He _says_ that, but once Miles actually gets to work, he has to make a run to the bathroom to be violently sick. He comes back, though, and takes his spot on the bed again. Miles feel that pride swelling again, even through the haze of his work.

Waylon watches all the way through. He asks questions, about what the guy did, and Miles tell him, about the murders—the wife, the children, the others after that. He gets Miles water when his throat goes hoarse from the combination of breathing with his mouth open and the walrider drying out the air. When it’s over, he does most of the cleanup while Miles lies sprawled out on the floor. And when they get to the car, he puts Miles in the passenger seat and drives them home.

Miles feels that weird kind of disconnected that happens after getting a taste of something good, and part of him wants to sleep for a week, but the rest of him just _feels_ so strongly that he catches Waylon by the arm after they get back to the house.

“Thanks,” he says. “You. Helped out a lot tonight. Besides the, uh. Y’know.”

Waylon looks back at him, a faint blush forming on his neck. “Well, I just wanted to be useful...” he says, and Miles can tell, without really meaning to, that Waylon doesn’t just mean he doesn’t want to outlive his usefulness. He wants to tell Waylon he’s already proved himself to be of worth, that Miles wants him here, wants to hunt like this again.

What comes out is, “You’re my accomplice now, you realize.”

The words make Waylon laugh a bit, and maybe there’s a somewhat hysterical edge to it, but Miles can related to that. “And what was I when I was just disposing of the bodies, then?”

Miles kisses him.

Waylon freezes, just like he did that day in the basement, and it’s so perfect Miles could cry. But almost immediately, Waylon is pulling back.

“Miles, what—you can’t just—“ he says, but he lets Miles lead him to the bedroom, lay him out on the bed. 

He kisses him again, and this time Waylon doesn’t resist, even as Miles crowds him, arms on either side of his head, body pushing him into the comforter. “Hey, can I?” he asks.

“Can you what,” Waylon says, but he nods anyway, a crooked smile hanging from his mouth.

Miles kisses him again, then works a trail down to his throat, tonguing at his pulse before biting down hard enough to draw blood. Under him, Waylon flinches and lets out a pained, “Ghhn,” but doesn’t protest.

So far the walrider has been content and silent, but it stirs to life at the light flicker of pain in the air. Miles feels it shift inside him as it slides the thinnest tendril into Waylon’s mind. **He likes this,** it says.

He tries hard not to snort. _Well sure,_ he tells it, licking at the bite marks.

**No, he likes _this._** It flashes him a replay of the bite, this time with Waylon’s spike of pain and arousal overlaid atop Miles’ own perceptions.

“Oh,” he says, pulling back to really look at Waylon. His face is flushed, lips parted, already breathing hard, and the little knit of his eyebrows tugs at Miles like his expression of surprise had. He presses closer, rocking his hips, and watches Waylon groan. –And yeah, maybe Miles groaning too, but who’s counting?

“Can I fuck you?” he asks, and he swears it takes Waylon a whole minute to form a coherent reply.

When he does, it’s, “Y-yeah. Yes.”

He makes quick work of Waylon’s clothes—and, as an afterthought, his own. When his shirt comes off Waylon goes still, and looking down Miles realizes he forgot to warn him about the bullet holes. “So that’s a thing,” he says, but Waylon’s already reaching forward, running his hands over the scars that sit in clusters all up Miles’ chest and down his abdomen. He stops at the waistband of Miles’ jeans, and Miles pulls those off as well, underwear following quickly.

It looks like Waylon wants to ask something, probably something personal and not very sexy, so Miles grabs the lube and works a hand between his legs.

What Trager never bothered to warn him about, when he was playing at surgery, was how weird it is to finger someone when you’re missing a couple of digits. Sure, he'd expected the lack of manual dexterity, but even typing was pretty easy once he got the hang of it. But now his fingers are slick and he can’t get a solid grip. When he fucks up and shoves three fingers in instead of two, Waylon practically wails, pushing down against him with a whimper.

He pulls out long enough to slick up his cock, then he’s pressing against Waylon’s ass, watching him squirm as he eases in. Watching his face, the way it cycles between winces of pain and breathless wanting. It makes Miles want to laugh, or to cry, or to come. Instead, he leans forward and sinks his teeth into Waylon’s shoulder, biting down in time with his thrusts.

When he pulls back to survey his work he finds he’s made a bloody mess of Waylon’s shoulder, and the bite on his neck is still bleeding sluggishly. Miles gives it a lick, then leans down to tug at a nipple. He feels Waylon tense up, waiting for the bite, but it never comes. Instead Miles gives it a lick, sealing his mouth around it, and feels Waylon arch his back with a drawn-out gasp.

Miles fucks into him harder, leaving a smattering of bites across his chest. He feels feverishly hot, from the tips of his remaining fingers to where his dick intersects with Waylon. He hasn’t been this warm since before he died, or before he became the host, whichever. He wants this again. He wants this never to end.

But Waylon’s got his eyes screwed shut and his teeth biting hard at his lower lip, looking about as overwhelmed as it’s possible to look, and Miles can’t help it. He grips Waylon’s hips hard enough to bruise, frenzied thrusts pushing him over the edge, and he’s coming hard, curling forward to bite at Waylon’s clean shoulder.

He comes down to the awareness of Waylon whimpering quietly under him, still hard. Miles sits back, pulling out of him, and Waylon hisses, rolling his hips like he’s can get Miles back in him. “Please,” he manages, and Miles feels it all through his body. He makes a note to experiment with the walrider’s control over refractory periods before shuffling back and shoving two fingers inside Waylon, wrapping his other hand around his dick. He stabs hard at where his prostate should be, and watches as Waylon goes rigid, back arching and hands grasping at air. Then he’s coming, hips bucking wildly, breath coming in erratic gasps.

He sinks back down, and Miles watches him for a while with the kind of awestruck curiosity usually reserved for his marks when he’s going to work on them. And maybe what he’s done here isn’t that different from the usual, with the exception of a very much alive human underneath him, albeit a bloody one.

“You should—probably sterilize those,” he croaks out hoarsely. Waylon _mm_ s, but doesn’t get up right away. When he does, it’s gingerly, leaning his weight on Miles absently as he gets his feet under him and shuffles to the bathroom. Miles takes his place on the bed, nose pressed into the comforter like he’ll smell something other than sweat and sex.

Maybe he falls asleep for a few minutes. The bathroom door opens and he lifts his head, watches Waylon amble over with a glass of water in his hands. For the second time tonight, he realizes, Waylon is taking care of him. He accepts the glass with a nod of thanks, downing half of it in one go before putting the glass down on the bedside table.

Waylon is still standing there awkwardly, and Miles rolls his eyes, tugging his arm until he gets with the program and climbs onto the bed. He’s got bandages on both shoulders, which is weird since Miles doesn’t remember owning a first aid kit. Was it here when he bought the house? If they’re going to be doing this regularly, he's willing to invest in one.

He falls asleep like that, with the walrider’s quiet static and Waylon’s slow breathing in his ears. And for once, he doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Let me know if you catch any spelling errors.


End file.
